Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Scriptures, we are all reminded of the need for each one of us to be transformed in our lives through Christ and through our faith in Him so that our lives may be exemplary as Christians, and be good inspirations and we may also be role models for one another in how each and every one of us ought to live up our lives each day. God has shown us the way to Him, and what we need to do is to embrace Him and to prepare ourselves to be good Christians, obedient and observant of God’s Law and commandments, in always doing our best in every moments to practice what we believe in and not just merely paying lip service to God.

In our first reading today, taken from the Book of the prophet Ezekiel we heard the words of the Lord calling on all of His people to abandon their wickedness, their evil ways and all the sins they had committed, and to turn to Him with a new heart. He told them all that He would give them all a new heart, replacing their old wicked heart of stone and giving them a new heart full of love and life, through which they will come closer to God, purified from their sins and evils, returning back to Him, and reunited with Him, to be His people and be blessed and filled with grace once again. It was indeed the sincere hope of the Lord Who has always loved His people despite all the challenges and tribulations those people faced and their often turbulent relationship with their Lord, Master and Creator.

Back then, the Israelites had went though a lot of tribulations and hardships from various kinds and origins, with their kingdoms and homeland destroyed, them uprooted from their lands and humiliated by losing the lands of their ancestors. They and their ancestors had disobeyed the Lord, abandoned His Law and commandments, refusing to listen to and obey the Law of the Lord, and hardening their hearts and minds against Him. They worshipped pagan idols and gods, and even persecuting and killing the prophets and messengers whom God had sent to them to help and remind them of their obligation and calling as His people, stubbornly continuing to go down the path of disobedience and rebellion, trusting in themselves and in worldly powers instead of depending and trusting in God.

As such, because of the hardening of their hearts, many of the people of God had been sundered from Him, and many were lost to Him, falling into the path of sin and probably to eternal damnation. This is a fate which the Lord’s parable in our Gospel passage today also echoed. In that parable, the Lord spoke of a king who hosted a wedding banquet for his son, and when he invited his guests, those guests refused to listen to him or to attend the banquet despite the reminders and the invitations that they had sent to them, making excuses and even insulting and killing those servants whom the king had sent to them, a tacit comparison with the state of how the people of God persecuted the prophets and messengers of God in the past.

Thus, the king sent a new invitation to the new batch of guests, after he had punished and crushed all those unworthy and deviant guests who refused to attend the wedding banquet. The king called forth everyone to come to his banquet, calling them from all sorts of places, which is a reference to how the Lord has called everyone, all the children of mankind, and not just the Israelites anymore, to be His disciples and followers, and to enter into His kingdom and way of truth. The Lord called on all of us to enter into His banquet, to rejoice together in His presence forevermore, in all the bounty and riches that He has graciously and lovingly prepared for each and every one of us, without exception.

However, as we all know, in order to attend a banquet, or any important event, there are certain expectations for us to fulfil, and one of them is that we have to be properly dressed and attired. Even at the time of the Lord Jesus, when many of the people were poor, during the time of any religious festivals and celebrations, the people would still come dressed in the best clothes they could afford or which they possessed, that they might worthily be present in the celebration. That is referring to our attitudes and our way of living our lives with faith, brothers and sisters in Christ. If we are to come to the presence of the Lord, then should we not do our very best to live our lives according to His ways?

That is why we heard what happened to the guest who came without the wedding garment, or a garment suitable to be worn into that event. The king asked the guest and then sent that unworthy guest out, cast out to suffer in the darkness, much as those who had rejected his invitation in the first place. This is an important reminder that unless we come to the Lord with a heart and mind filled with love for Him, with genuine and true faith, then we can have no place with Him and in Him in His kingdom. And if we remain stubborn with this attitude, then unfortunately our lot will be to endure forever the suffering and the damnation that comes with our own conscious rejection of God’s love, grace and truth.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all keep all these in mind as we continue to progress ever more in our lives, and remind ourselves to keep faithful to God in all things and at all times. We should remove from ourselves all taints of wickedness and evils, all stubbornness and allow the Lord to change us and our hearts and minds just as He had said that He would do. Let us allow the Lord to place in each one of us a new, beating heart, living and vibrant with love for Him and for our fellow brethren, and remove from ourselves our past hearts of stone, full of stubbornness, pride and ego. This is what many of us should be doing so that we can get closer to God instead of being distracted and pulled ever further away from Him.

Today, the Church celebrates the Feast of St. Bernard, also known as St. Bernard the Abbot and St. Bernard of Clairvaux. He was a great man of God, a dedicated monk and abbot, the founder of the Cistercian Order, formed from the reformation of the Benedictine order. He was also the co-founder of the renowned Knights Templar, and his many other contributions have been well-known throughout history, and are great inspirations for us all to follow, in how we ourselves live our lives as Christians. He was born into a family of high nobility in Burgundy, a region that is part of today’s France. Since his early youth, he has always had a strong devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and he later on would promote his devotion to Mary throughout all of his works and missions.

St. Bernard has always wanted to become a priest, and later on, eventually he inspired many other men who followed his inspiration to join a monastic life, setting up the community of reformed Benedictines, which would eventually become the foundation of the Cistercian Order, and becoming the Abbot of Clairvaux, for which he was most well-known for. He soon had many following, and many people flocked to join his monastery, and support his endeavour, including his own father and brothers. He took part in many important events throughout the Church, supporting the Pope and others in embarking on the vigorous reforms of the Church and the Christian faith, improving the spirituality and discipline of the faithful, both those among the clergy and the laity alike.

Then, he was also remembered for his many works in opposing heresies and rooting out corrupt practices in the Church, taking part in Church councils and working on my writings, letters and documents which made his efforts and works truly influential at the time, as well as long after his passing and era. He had to face difficulties and challenges from the heretics and all those who opposed his reforms and efforts, but all these did not dampen his spirit and desire to follow the Lord faithfully and to do whatever he could to serve Him. He continued to labour hard in service to God and His people, as well as spreading the devotion to Mary, the Holy Mother of God in all of his works and missions throughout all of Christendom until the end of his life.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, from the great life and examples showed to us by St. Bernard of Clairvaux, his dedication and efforts to serve the Lord, and through what we have been discussing from our Scripture passages, we should strive to live our lives worthily at all times, putting Him as the focus and centre of all of our lives and not the many distractions and temptations of worldly matters, wealth, possessions and all the other things that often distract us from the path towards God and His salvation. Let us all reorientate our lives so that we may focus them once more towards the Lord and reject the excesses of the world around us. May God be with us always and may He empower us to be ever more faithful and committed in following Him, now and always. Amen.